Date of Award
2017
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Open Access)
Department
Colby College. Government Dept.
Advisor(s)
Walter Hatch
Abstract
Feminism in general exposes the fundamental folly of Western political theorists’ view of human nature, which is based on Western, decently well-off, white men’s experiences and privilege. This view of human nature, which is not human nature at all, but rather a socially constructed definition of what men’s human nature is, is replicated in neoclassical economics and perpetuated in mainstream Western International Relations theory. Understanding the social construction of norms exposes how what is conceived in conventional theory as human nature and state behavior is unnecessarily limiting. The U.S. is the greatest benefactor from the worldview of Western political theorists, because it is the most powerful state in the international system. Using a feminist critique as a starting point, this thesis uncovers the assumptions that thread together Western political thought and unpacks them to advocate for a whole new range of possibilities, in which we can expect more from people and states and emphasize the agency of U.S. policy-makers.
Keywords
Masculinism; masculinist; feminism; feminist; norms; norm
Recommended Citation
Stovicek, Nadia, "Constructing (Hu)man Nature: A Feminist Critique of Western IR Theory, Liberal Economics and U.S. Foreign Policy" (2017). Honors Theses. Paper 848.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/848